The MARCI acquires a global view of the red planet and its weather patterns every day. Please click and play the movie (.mp4 file) to see how the weather on Mars changed during this time.

Dust clouds and hazes still loomed over Mars last week. Some atmospheric clearing was spotted over Noachis and Aonia Terra as the planet-encircling dust event transitioned to a decay phase. The edges of the canyons that make up Valles Marineris were also discernible most afternoons. Looking to the northern mid-to-high latitudes, a number of local-scale dust storms and water-ice clouds were observed along the polar vortex. Dust suspended near Tharsis contributed to relatively warm conditions and a lack of water-ice clouds. Atmospheric dust levels remained high for both rovers, Opportunity in Endeavour Crater and Curiosity in Gale Crater throughout the week.

About the Movie:
The movie (a .mp4 file that you can click and play, above)
was generated from images obtained by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) onboard the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). During a nominal operational week, a total
of about 273 MARCI images, taken in three of the camera’s seven color filter
bands (420, 550, and 600 nanometer wavelengths), are map projected and mosaiced together to produce seven false-color daily
global maps. These maps are then projected onto a sphere with north at the top and east to the right and
with the mid-afternoon vantage point of an observer in the orbital plane (the imaginary plane that the planet
draws out as it circles the Sun).
Black areas in the movie are the result of data drops or high angle roll maneuvers by the spacecraft that limit
the camera’s view of the planet. Equally-spaced blurry areas that run from south-to-north (bottom-to-top) result
from the high off-nadir viewing geometry, a product of the spacecraft’s low-orbit, 250 km x 316 km (155 miles x 196 miles).
The movie is rendered at a lower resolution than the intrinsic 1–2 km nadir resolution that the MARCI provides, so that it
is practical to view and share via the Internet. The small white circles on these images of Mars indicate the locations of the Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity (on Meridiani Planum), and the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity (in Gale Crater). Other locations
on Mars referenced in the weather report can be found by referring to the map below. Note that the still image of Mars depicted
at the top of this page is a single frame from the movie.

Citation and CreditThe image(s) and caption are value-added products. MSSS personnel processed the images
and wrote the caption information. While the image(s) are in the Public Domain,
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS requests that you credit the source of the image(s). Re-use of the
caption text without credit is plagiarism.
Please give the proper credit for use of the image(s) and/or caption.